Secret talks create alarm

Western officials hoping to nurture a role in Afghanistan's government for the once-denounced Taliban might be wise not to look this week for encouragement from Northern Ireland, where rival fundamentalists of Sinn Fein and the DUP still cling to the wreckage of their power-sharing agreement. There is actually a tenuous link between Kabul and the fast-moving affairs of the province where Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen, the Irish taoiseach, arrived tonight to bang heads together. The link is Robert Cecil, seventh Marquis of Salisbury, an arch-Unionist who served in John Major's cabinet as Lord Cranborne.

In the 1980s Cranborne helped fund Afghan mujahideen resistance to Soviet occupation, the future Taliban. Ten days ago his ancient family seat at Hatfield played host to a meeting that may also recoil against his own side.

Owen Paterson, David Cameron's Northern Ireland secretary-in-waiting, held private talks (they leaked) there with senior Unionist politicians from Belfast. Among them was Peter Robinson, still running the DUP show despite taking "temporary leave" as first minister during police investigation of Irisgate, his wife's tangled sex-and-money scandal.

Some DUP politicians played it up as a "historic" meeting. Moderate Unionists were alarmed. For all concerned, much is at stake. Why? Today a very-presidential Martin McGuinness, Robinson's Sinn Féin deputy first minister, warned that his patience is running out over DUP foot-dragging in the transfer of police and justice from Westminster to Whitehall, a hugely symbolic issue for the nationalist parties, a fearful one for many Unionists.

Peter Robinson would like to cut a deal if his party agreed. So would Brown, Cowen, and even David Cameron, who has backed Labour on Storment matters. But Robinson is weakened by Irisgate. If McGuinness finally resigns (many think he will despite Brown-Cowen arm-twisting) the rules require fresh Stormont elections ahead of the Westminster elections expected on 6 May. In 2007 the DUP took 36 seats to 28 for Sinn Féin. This time Sinn Féin could emerge as the largest party.

Even moderate Stormont Unionists would hesitate to endorse McGuinness as first minister, so the result would be the suspension of devolution again and direct rule from Whitehall, as in 2002-7. That may - may - be why Paterson convened the Hatfield meeting: to persuade the Unionist parties to agree an electoral pact rather than let Sinn Féin win. Is it too late for DUP/UUP modernisers to merge and recreate a secular Unionist majority party under the pressure of events? Probably. Will prime minister Cameron find himself flying to Belfast in the autumn to try and revive Stormont? Very likely. But no one can be sure of much.